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Community Corner

Selling Your Home? Make it Picture Perfect

By Laura Dante

A picture is worth a thousand words. If you’re thinking about selling your home, the photos in your listing are critical.

Real estate agents used to talk about “curb appeal.”  But today, it’s all about “web appeal.”  Home buyers are scouring the Internet to find their next homes, typically scanning hundreds of listings, looking for the perfect property.  Which means it isn’t enough to consider how your home looks to people driving by on the street.  You have to think about how your home looks on the web.

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The first thing buyers look at are the pictures in a listing.  So if your photos don’t measure up, the result may be fewer calls, fewer showings, and ultimately, a lower sale price. 

As a photographer who works with top real estate agents in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, I’m often asked how sellers can get the best possible pictures for their listing.  Here’s what I tell them:

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  1. Clear out the clutter. Your house will show better if it’s clean and well-organized. Potential buyers are interested in buying your home, not your furnishings. So take a minimalist approach to personal items around the house, such as piles of paperwork, books, houseplants and photos.
  2. Choose an agent who uses professional photographer.  Look at an agent’s listings and compare the photos to those in other listings.  If the photos don’t make you want to visit the properties, keep shopping.  Unfortunately, many agents are still snapping photos themselves using point-and-shoot cameras, or even cell phones. The result is grainy, poorly lit and unappealing photos.  
  3. Ask your agent about posting a video of your home on YouTube. More than 80 percent of all buyers find their homes online, and 21 percent look for online videos.  Videos are a great tool for convincing buyers to set up a showing to see the real thing!
  4. Include floor plans in your listing. Interactive floor plans that show how rooms relate to each other are an increasingly popular marketing tool. Some brokerages have begun making them standard. The combination of floor plans and professionally-taken photos creates the ultimate shopping experience for buyers.

Studies show that sellers who provide striking, high-resolution photos in their listings can expect a higher sale price. Professional photos help listings get more Internet views, and they increase the perceived value of a home by nearly 13 percent. On a $250,000 home, this equates to an increase of $32,500, according to a consumer survey by real estate photography company VHT Studios.  Proof positive that when it comes to selling a home, pictures are worth more than a thousand words, they can be worth thousands of dollars!

Laura Dante is a professional architectural photographer.  She can be reached at laura.dante@vhtstudios.com

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